Anyone know how to bypass the Grub Boot to boot from CD?

Yeah I know, another stupid computer question. I am only good at the hardware section of rebuilding computers but I am slowly learning the in's and
out's of Linux, Windows and Unix software systems. It takes time. Right now, too bogged down with finals.

But I am trying to run the restore disk for the emachine but grub won't let me.

If you're putting XP on it, I think you'll also need to replace the master boot record (MBR), as that's where GRUB resides. If you're going to put
Win7 on it, it will overwrite the MBR on its own.

There is no one single way to do that. It depends on what tools you have at hand. I'd recommend UBCD4WIN, or something similar--something that has a
tool you can use to do the deed.

Somebody call me on this if I'm mistaken....

ETA: Sometimes there's also an F-key that will let you choose whether to start from hard drive or CD or USB stick or whatever. Usually F11 or F12.
Sometimes it's F8, but, whichever it is, you have to hit it early--just after you hear the single startup beep, give the key a tap every couple of
seconds or so until it comes up.

It should actually tell you what key you need to press to enter the BIOS unless it's been set to display a manufacturer logo. If you find the screen
switches too quickly to read hit the Scroll Lock key on the keyboard (top right of keyboard usually, middle of three keys) to freeze the display for
reading. Press space-bar afterwards to let the PC continue starting. Good luck.

It should actually tell you what key you need to press to enter the BIOS unless it's been set to display a manufacturer logo. If you find the screen
switches too quickly to read hit the Scroll Lock key on the keyboard (top right of keyboard usually, middle of three keys) to freeze the display for
reading. Press space-bar afterwards to let the PC continue starting. Good luck.

It does but every-time I press those keys it automatically goes to grub.

Yeah, usually what I do is, after I hear the beep, I hit F12/F11/F8...F12/F11/F8...F12/F11/F8. If you hit them too many times it will fill the
type-ahead buffer and stop to tell you that you have a stuck key. At that point you can sometimes look around the screen and find the message that
tells you which F-key to hit.

The BIOS might look confusing if you've never been in one before. You should see various pages allowing you to change settings to things. Look for
something along the lines of "Boot Order" or "Boot Devices". You need to change what it is doing now (booting from the hard disk) to booting from the
cdrom.

Don't worry about deleting grub, if would happen anyway as soon as you run that restore CD. Everything tends ti get wiped in that scenario.

ETA And to get into the BIOS, my rule of thumb is slowly press the key in question repeatedly after power on until I'm in. As soon as the screen is
active you should be able to get into the BIOS.

If GRUB is coming up then you are hitting F2 too late.
ETA The PC startup order is you turn on the PC. the BIOS gets activated, a POST (Power On Self-Test) occurs and drives are spun up. The BIOS contains
a pointer to the boot device, (usually a hard disk) and executes the boot loader found on that device. In other words, the BIOS comes first or before
any operating system such as Windows, Linux or Mac. Yes, I know it all sounds fairly mind-numbing but I didn't invent the terminology.

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